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The Oxford Handbook of Comic Book Studies ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190917944.013.37 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 641-655

Author(s):

Matthew J. Smith ◽

Randy Duncan

Keyword(s):

Discussion Groups ◽

First Century ◽

Research Teams ◽

Learned Societies ◽

Comics Studies ◽

Practice Based Research ◽

Twenty First Century ◽

Empirical Approaches

This chapter looks ahead to the possible trajectories of twenty-first-century Comics studies. Scholars are expanding the disciplinary perspectives and methodologies, from empirical approaches to practice-based research, brought to bear in studying comics. Perhaps more of that research will be done collaboratively, including multidisciplinary and transnational research teams. Comics scholars seem to be maintaining the zeal of a movement as they continue to integrate the field into the institutions of academia, from creating interdisciplinary minors to establishing comics studies divisions and discussion groups in learned societies. While resistance to comics studies might have diminished within the academy, there is still a need for outreach to educate the wider public about the value of comics. More detailed than the ubiquitous “next issue” caption box at the end of a comics magazine, this chapter does nonetheless serve as a preview of coming attractions for the next historical span in the field.

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Embodied Consciousness

The Oxford Handbook of Improvisation in Dance ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199396986.013.46 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 134-150

Author(s):

Nalina Wait

Keyword(s):

Formal Logic ◽

The Body ◽

First Century ◽

Embodied Consciousness ◽

Practice Based Research ◽

The Subject ◽

Core Principle ◽

Twenty First Century

In the twenty-first century, improvisation as a mode of performance has gained momentum in Western theatre dance. Yet its theorization remains challenged, not only by the ephemerality of the subject but also by the ways that its corporeal knowledges resist language and elude codification. This is because the practice does not comply with a dualistic hierarchy of ‘mind-over-matter’ but instead proposes body-mind unification as a core principle of the practice. Drawing from examination of the author’s own practice-based research, this chapter qualitatively examines a key methodology of improvised practice described as embodied consciousness. This chapter articulates how the bifurcation of embodied consciousness, as thinking-through-the-body and the body’s mind, can operate in an improvised performance and how it can be cultivated and refined through practice. Furthermore, it interrogates how the model for articulating composition needs reframing in an improvisational context, from a language based on formal logic to one based on attending to fluctuating, formless ‘intensities’.

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